For me, this means that I think better when there is a constant stream of white noise that I can block out entirely. It’s the reason I could never study in the library at college; it was so damn quiet that any scrape of a chair, any turning of a page would distract me. My favorite place to go was our school’s Memorial Union building, it was where the post office, bookstore and travel office all came together. It also had the most awesome room looking out onto our quad with huge square cushions where one could set up books/laptops/various studying accoutrements. With the constant stream of students in and out and the bursts of noise from the requisite frisbee-players outside, it was the perfect place for me to concentrate fully on whatever was in front of me.

Hopefully not this. Slightly more distracting.

The same applies now. Minus the protesters, in theory.

I prefer to head out to a favorite local coffeeshop (of which there are many in LA, thankfully. I’m looking at you, Groundworks! I <3 you! ) in order to write or read as there is just enough hum of noise for me to be able to fully enjoy whatever is in front of me. At home, however, it gets a little more difficult as I don’t live in a hostel or commune. YET.

I love putting on background music while I’m writing, or turn on Direct TV’s music channels if I’m on the couch in the living room. But if I’m reading, I can’t listen to music with actual lyrics as my brain just wants to sing along. Instrumental music is a must. For a while I only had a few Firefly songs on repeat (I HIGHLY recommend “Inara’s Suite” if you haven’t heard it), but even the awesomeness of Greg Edmonson can only be listened to so many times. I therefore went on an iTunes binge and put together a still-growing playlist of music I enjoy to have on while gaming/reading/blogging/swiss polka dancing.

Maybe not the last one.

I tended to favor songs from sci-fi and fantasy (Quelle suprise, I’m sure. ) Some of the songs I’d had for a while (River’s Dance/Inara’s Suite/Inside the Tam House from Firefly. I also found out that a few songs I’d had on my iTunes forever like Adiemus was not done by Enya, but rather Karl Jenkins off the Pure Moods, Vol. 1 album. My version of Braveheart’s Theme? Also not by Enya or even James Horner, but rather by Crimson Ensemble on another Celtic compilation album.

I started adding to my collection by looking at various films and easily found songs from favorites like Lord of the Rings. However, I started realizing that while I loved them in the context of the film, they were sometimes a little too distracting and rousing to fit well in the playlist (Although, I did love The Council of Elrond (Theme for Aragorn and Arwen) [feat. "Aniron"] from the original soundtrack. Gorgeous!) They sounded like movie songs. Luckily for me, there were albums out there like Music Inspired By Middle Earth by David Arkenstone that fit perfectly. Movies like Avatar were awesome as well, but only a few songs (like Jake’s First Flight and The Bioluminescence of the Night were the type I was looking for.

The ‘Genius’ sidebar in iTunes was also extremely helpful, leading me to various songs from the Doctor Who and Angel soundtracks, to name a few. I also tend to have an affinity for asian themes, so Going to School from Memoirs of a Geisha is one of my favorites as well.

I couldn’t leave out anime and video games, so I started with classics like Princess Mononoke (The Instrumental Theme Song is just gorgeous), and Lelianna’s Song from Dragon Age: Origins as well as a few songs from Final Fantasy X are on there (“Wandering Flame” from Disc 4 is a favorite).

As a side note, it is a huge pain in the ass to get a text playlist file from iTunes. Getting a .pdf was fairly easy, but attempting to convert it to something that is easily cut-and-pasteable proved frustrating at best. So unfortunately, I had to make do with only including a .pdf file to easily view all of the songs.

The FULL Instrumental Playlist is available here in .PDF format for your viewing pleasure.

Greetings Nerd-dom, our festival has arrived.

I will be leaving in a few short hours, suitcase and garment bag in hand, to head down to Comic Con! I’m truly psyched for this year. Most of my close friends are going to be down there for their various panels, The Guild’s panel is at a larger room this year to hopefully accommodate all of our fantabulous fans, and our shiny hotel room is booked and waiting RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the convention center.

I may be the tiniest bit giddy right now.

In addition to The Guild’s panel on Saturday, I’ve been invited to join GeekWeek.com‘s panel entitled “The State of Geekdom” which will be streaming live (from a YACHT!) at 4pm on Friday afternoon. So, if you could not make it out to San Diego this year or are perhaps taking a mid-convention break next to your laptop, check it out! I’ll be there with my friends Milynn Sarley and Rileah Vanderbilt (who some of you may know is the girl my Guild character Riley was based on!)

Milynn and me. Friends...Really.

In any case, I believe I will be part of a few signings alongside The Guild cast, but am still waiting for details on that. I will be tweeting the most up-to-date info as per usual, so just make sure to check that out if you want to come find me and say hi!

I will also be attending the Celebrate The Web event directly following The Guild panel. The event is currently sold out, but they are doing a waitlist. Guild cast will be in attendance and it’s a great opportunity to hear more about upcoming web-series! There may EVEN be sneak peeks from my upcoming webseries Zimm!

Perhaps I shouldn’t have had that second cup of coffee.

IN THE MEANTIME!

Here’s episode 3 of SOLO the Series! I think it’s the funniest of the three we’ve posted so far, and Jonathan tells me the donations continue to roll in to help us keep shooting the rest of Season 1!! Want to donate and earn my undying love? Go here.

I’m SO excited, I really feel this site needed a major overhaul! Thanks to my friend Edgar Garcia, the site had looked really great before, but I felt kind of limited by only using someone else’s design. I really wanted most of the information to be on the front page, to avoid numerous click-throughs in order to get to actual information. I also wanted it to be more of a social media hub, representing all the various sites I’m active on throughout my life. The idea is that the website would be a good encompassing tool to show off my professional life but keep it personal enough to make it interesting (hopefully!).

So I enlisted the help of the wonderful Amanda Shockley, and we went to work! Thanks go to her for putting up with my (many!) emails back and forth about how I wanted the look to be.

So go on, take a look around. Leave comments! :D

Logan Rapp over at TubeFilter News has written up a wonderful review of my latest webseries “SOLO the Series”. Some of my favorite snippets from the article:

“…The show is shot very well – and very simply. A web series doesn’t have to prove itself by making as many trick shots as possible. Sometimes it’s just better to let the scene breathe, and SOLO does that well. The soundtrack is effective without being overbearing, heightening moments that need to be heightened and allowing the scene to do the work rather than covering up deficiencies with music cues. ”

“…And speaking of the wife, if scene stealing a criminal offense, Michele Boyd (The Guild) would be doing a life sentence at this point…As Scott’s wife Rebecca, she’s able to play the pissed off spouse without succumbing to the ever-lingering trap of Shrew Wife Syndrome. It’s an easy trap to fall into, and difficult to avoid, but from what I’ve seen, she’s managing without any trouble (call me).”

“…Win, Fail or Trainwreck: A solid Win.”

I’m really happy that this review came out. It’s the first ‘official’ outside viewpoint on this new webseries, and it’s more than a little gratifying to get good feedback! I’m so excited for Jonathan, as well. This was his first attempt at making an entire series, and he was more than willing to wait until we got the funding, the talent and the equipment to ensure that it turned out exactly how he saw it.

I’m not gonna lie, I’m PSYCHED at what the reviewer said about me personally. :D I’m one of those actors who cringe every time I see myself on screen, thinking about what I would’ve/could’ve/should’ve done better. I’m blessed when I get great material to work from, so mostly I’m terrified at not letting that shine through. So to hear that I was able to accomplish that is the best compliment I could get.

Little behind-the-scenes tidbit? In the first episode, where I’m pleading with the manager Jack Spratt (Jay Caputo) while walking towards him? What you don’t see is the ridiculously complex dolly track for the video camera that I’m trying desperately not to trip over during that speech. I’m also holding “eye contact” with a piece of tape on the camera case as it moves backwards until Jay can duck underneath it to meet me for our verbal exchange. You can barely tell, right? RIGHT?? Glad that worked out ;)

Read the full article from Tubefilter here.

So the FANTABULOUS guys over at AutoTune The News have auto-tuned all of Season 3 of The Guild! I’m psyched, I love their work, and it makes our show look even MORE hilarious! Can’t wait for Season 4 to start rolling out.

Web Files’ host, Kristyn Burtt, volunteers for a singular mission: to interview as many of the cast and crew as possible of Jonathan Nail’s upcoming sci-fi comedy web series, SOLO, at their red carpet premiere. Mission accomplished!

This is the latest web series I’m involved with with my dear friend Jonathan Nail. I play the wife left back on earth while her husband is stuck up in space in a canceled reality show. We premiered the first three episodes at Cinespace in early June, and The Web Files was there!

It was just announced today that I’ll be joining another sci-fi series entitled “Zimm the Series”! I’m super excited about this; I actually auditioned for the executive producer of this project Gregory Storm a year ago on a different project. I remember being quite upset at not booking it because I had loved the script so much! Well, we ran into each other at a Web TV event, and the rest is history! I’ll be joining the cast as Halley Zimm, the mother of the lead character (it will all make sense, we promise).

I can’t wait to work with Gregory, Zadi Diaz, Zelda Hallman (who directed my episode of the Penny Dreadfuls, incidentally), Alimi Ballard (NUMB3RS) and the rest of the extremely talented cast!

You can learn more about the project by going to http://www.zimmtheseries.com

By now I’m sure you’ve read the various blogs/rants/apologies swirling around last night’s Streamy Awards. From the technical glitches to the over-long bits, the streaking and the gay jokes, the entire event did indeed feel like a tech rehearsal gone wrong. However, it was the overall tone that the awards show took over the course of the evening that truly bothered me. Celebrities’ speeches and even prepared videos seemed to undermine and at times openly mock the medium that we were supposed to be there to celebrate. Perhaps what finally did it for me was Kevin Pollak’s intro to the Best Guest Star in a Web Series Award. It was, simply, mean. “When they asked me to present the best guest star in a web series award, I thought, ‘Wow, my ship has really come in’. ” “Because let’s face it, being asked to work on a friend’s web series is the new jury duty.” “Why don’t you go out and get your own damn series.”

I wasn’t nominated for the award, and in truth, for a few seconds during Mr. Pollak’s speech, I was almost glad I hadn’t been. How did he think the award recipients would feel after being introduced like that?

However, because of how I feel about guest starring on The Guild and because it’s my own damn blog and I can do whatever I feel like, here is my acceptance speech for Best Guest Star in a Web Series for the 2010 Streamy Awards:

“Wow. *smiles* Thank you for this. Despite how some people this evening seem to feel towards web television, I really believe that this is a wonderful new medium that deserves its place amongst mainstream TV or film productions. People who don’t have a studio backing are able to create something they care about and have a platform to share it with the world. All of you deserve applause, not mockery. You deserve to be recognized and thanked, not insulted. I of course want to thank the wonderful people working on The Guild; Felicia Day, Sean Becker and Kim Evey. No one works harder or cares more about the integrity of the work that they produce. I love working on your show, I love the fans that watch and support us and I just want to say thank you for *never* making it feel like jury duty.”

Oh I’m excited about this one. Obviously any TV booking is cause for joy, bliss and rapture, but I adore this show! I’ll be appearing on episode 22, will be tweeting air dates when I know them. Hooray!!! 2nd TV booking of the new year and it’s only March!